Author: Ted Tucker
Hot Topic: Gas Prices ?!?
Moaning about the rising price of oil and gasoline has become part of our daily routine. We expect rising gas prices because . . . . Well, because, in our experience, that’s what gas prices do. But then, they didn’t! The price of gasoline began falling last summer . . . and it kept falling and kept falling – until the national average price in January was $2.05/gallon. #HowCanThatBe? Use the economic way of thinking and Economic Reasoning Propositions 3&4 to figure it out.
Hot Topic: Chocapocalypse?!
The potential for a “chocapocalypse” isn’t just advertising hype. Take a walk through the store and check out the price of chocolate. The boxes and bags – and even good old chocolate chips – are pretty pricey. (And, just sayin’, chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips . . . )
Hot Topic: Running Scared – Children Crossing the Border
Fall, 2014 (reposted Dec., 2015) Estimates of the number of unaccompanied children who tried to cross the border into the…
Hot Topic: Captain Phillips: Pirate Economics
Economics in the movies! Ripped from the big screen just in time for Halloween! Check out “Captain Phillips: Pirate Economics.” Our latest hot topic uses the economic way of thinking (ERPs #1&2) to explain how getting in a tiny fishing boat and traveling 200 miles across a sea patrolled by the U.S. Navy to attack a cargo ship might actually be a rational choice rather than just plain craziness.
Hot Topic: Why Is There Corn In Your Coke? (April, 2013)
LearnLiberty, a project of the Institute for Humane Studies (a non-profit dedicated to “learning about the ideas of a free society” ) has generously invited the FTE to use their videos in lessons on economic reasoning. The provocatively titled “Why Is There Corn in Your Coke?” explains how the institutional “rules of the game” can affect even such mundane choices as whether soft drinks are sweetened with sugar or corn syrup, and sets the stage for understanding the power of special interest groups in our current national debates over gun control and immigration policy.
Economic Reasoning & Immigration (March 2013)
Immigration reform is front and center in the news and emotions are high. It’s ‘hot.” It’s also the first in our new series of Hot Topics in partnership with Gooru Learning.
Check out our new Hot Topic blended learning format. FTE – Gooru Hot Topics provide students the background instruction, reading, and viewing that allow you to run engaging simulations, discussions, and group projects using economic reasoning in the clasroom.
Institutions Matter: Experiments in Real Life
We don’t usually think of conducting experiments in social science. What would the mad social scientist do – imprison two groups of people in plastic bubble-biomes and use one as the control group while administering different economic or social policies to the other? Not likely! But, every once in awhile, social science ‘experiments’ happen on their own, and when we are alert enough to recognize them, we can learn a great deal.